French Nuclear Firm Areva Is In Total Disarray After Terrible Year

coralinetheblue / Flickr The French nuclear firm, Areva, has revealed it will make huge cuts to jobs, investments and dividends after a shocking year, reports the BBC.

Suffering from the political fallout surrounding the nuclear disasters in Japan in March, the company will offload 1,500 people — a quarter of its workforce — in Germany, where the government have pledged to phase out nuclear power. It has also said it will curb some of its projects planned for the next five years.

The company is expected to announce an operating loss of $2.1 billion this year.

Europe, and in particular France, has cast nuclear power in a negative light since the events in Japan earlier this year. Another French company, EDF was told last month that it needed to upgrade all of its French facilities amid safety concerns.

Additionally, the company was fined $2 million for spying on Greenpeace activists a month ago.